Visual Noise

Visual noise is noise within the visual perspective of the player.
In this lessons I hope to discuss the concept of visual noise so that
you can readily identify it in your own maps. I hope to also discuss how
it impacts the Game Play in negative ways.

What Is It?

Visual noise is noise that distracts from what is otherwise displayed
on the screen. It is too much detail, too many colors mixed together,
too much of too much in a small concentrated spot. And the worse case is
when you use blocks whose skins are the source of the noise and are
used everywhere. Then you have a map full of noise.

To better understand what visual noise is, we could ask how it is introduced into a map.

Visual noise is created by things like thin lines of extreme
contrast to their background that serve no purpose – like graffiti on a
wall. Only they are worse than graffiti because they are not graffiti.
Contrasts in fine detail can yield visual noise unless the fine detail
looks like it belongs there. In most of the Canvases of Halo 4, you see
fine lines that move along in all directions and you won’t be able to
make them look like any of them are intended or were meant to be there.

In some cases it can be as simple as lines that are not at the same
elevation, or at angles to each other, of different thicknesses, or
different colors to each other. They don’t create any kind of
consistency, so they all clash against each other. Notice in the
following picture that the line down the center walkway is off centered;
the bands running horizontally on each side are different in both
width, and in their heights off the floor; and that the vertical line
running up the right wall serves no purpose other than to clash in
pattern (it has no black lines in it) to the horizontal lines that it
crosses. This is visual noise.

If you have lines running in both the x and y directions, and the
block is placed where a Path may flow along the x axis, then the lines
in the y direction are useless – they won’t look like they belong there.
The same is true when lines wrap around the center of blocks or around
the edges of the blocks. In those cases, the lines draw your attention
to the block rather than any Path that flows over the block.

On the other hand, if the line that runs along the edge of the block
is very subtle, then the block takes on a feel of a tile. A tiled
flooring is not bad. In this case, the lines actually look like they
belong there, because the floor looks like a tiled floor. The subtle
contrast is enough to give you the feel of a tiled floor without trying
to compete for your attention.

It isn’t just the lines on a block, but also lines through out the
visual perspective. Take a ramp, for example. If a line on the floor
runs up to it, but is off center to the bottom of the ramp, it looks
like it shouldn’t be there – it looks like it is noise.

Take the example of a grill pattern at an entrance to a Space. If it
isn’t lined up properly, if it is off to the side, it looks like the
forger just slapped the block there and never concerned themselves with
what it looked like. The grill pattern against an otherwise solid
surface looks like noise, because it doesn’t look like it really belongs
there.

Or take the various textures of the walls that are literally next to
each other. If they all look different, if they all have different
colors, patterns, and shapes, then they look like noise to each other,
because they lack any cohesion.

There are blocks that use different colors, like the Halo 4 Ravine
4×4 corner. I have seen this used in a number of maps, and I have tried
to use it myself. It is dog ugly, folks. Just avoid blocks that
introduce the levels of ugliness and noise like this.

Less Is More

Remember the lesson on Less Is More? The same is true with visual
aspects of your map. The best looking maps have always been those with
the least detail exposed on the skins of the blocks, have employed the
least number of blocks possible, and have leveraged the subtle
variations of the surface textures of the terrain as the visual
foundation for it overall appearance and beauty.

My number one goal in forging has become and remains to this day to
utilize blocks with the most subtle changes in colors and the least
geometric shapes on their skins (e.g., powder blue on white, rather than
sharp black on white). I don’t always achieve this goal at every turn,
but it is a great start to suppress visual noise from which I can build
upon.

Working With Noise

If there are lines through out the blocks, I try to line them up in a
way that they actually look like they were intended there, rather than
they were just the skin on the block. The best approach to using lines
in the skins is to leverage them as lines on a street. When they are
used to indicate predominate direction of traffic, they can actually
look like they belong there.

The central tower of Hekau is an example of where the numerous fine
lines and powder blue bars were aligned with each other to make them
look like the intended exterior paint job on the building itself.
Maintaining the alignment in such a way that they look reasonable added
to the beauty of the map. I didn’t like the visual noise that the sides
of the stunt ramp offered, but the stunt ramp provided decent Geometry
and the skins on the top and bottom were extremely helpful in creating a
subtle Architectural appearance.

In one of my Erosion maps, which I consider to have the most
beautiful skins I have ever seen, I merged the 2x3s with 2x4s where
their common skin imagery blended. This allowed me to create curved
ramps as underpasses to other curved ramps, creating a crafted look
rather than forged look.

Notice how I was able to use the direction of the lines, both the fat
bars and thin lines, to show predominate direction of travel across the
structure. I wasn’t happy with some of the skins’ patterns, but I was
able to leverage them very effectively by forming a pattern as part of
the Architecture itself.

Blindness

When Halo 4 came out, the blocks in the forge Canvases Ravine were
horrendously noisy. The publisher responded to our complaining about
visual noise (directly or indirectly, we really have no idea which) by
giving us a detail blind palette in Forge Island. What do I mean by
detail blind?

When you look at the skins of two blocks on Ravine, chances are you
will see blushes of rust here and there. Take those two blocks and merge
them together and you can see the corner of their merge by how the rust
abruptly ends along the edge of the corner. Even if there was no rust,
rather just a flat color, you could still easily see the corner edge of
their intersection by how the colors of the two surfaces were slightly
different. This in fact has always been the case even with every Canvas
palettes on Reach.

But Halo 4’s Forge Island introduced a new concept, Blindness,
where the corner of the intersection of two blocks simply disappeared
from view. It isn’t clear why this happens. It could be a byproduct of
the publishers’ attempts to reduce visual noise. And it happens
typically only in the shadows of interior spaces where the detail is
lost to blending with shadow.

This blindness is more of a distraction than visual noise ever could
be, and for a very similar reason – it requires the player to
concentrate on what they are looking at to understand what they are
looking at. It is a huge distraction to the player.

If the environment you are forging includes blindness of edges and
details, you want to make sure that no where does the blindness manifest
itself.

Striking Features

All of this discussion on visual noise should not be confused with
striking features of Architecture. Bold, thick, solid patterns on a skin
repeated across a structure can be used to enhance a strong
Architectural Theme. For example, the large black pattern repeated
across the wall in Hekau doesn’t stick out as noise, but as a bold
Architectural feature.

Consider the next picture of the same Erosion map from above, in
which the interior of the center structure leveraged the copper band at a
singular height from the floor to give a solid Architecture. By
maintaining a solid and consistent width through out the interior, the
band becomes a striking Architectural feature rather than noise.

This is not the same as hopelessly aimless lines that go no where and
thus have no real purpose other than the forger cannot get rid of them.
And in many cases you don’t want Architecture void of contrasting
elements. You just want the contrasting elements to contribute to the
Architecture and never be a distraction.

Summary

Visual noise is a distraction to players, most notably because it
requires the player to concentrate on the noise and understand what it
is he is looking at.

Visual noise breaks cohesion of the Architecture and breaks immersion
across the board. In some cases you might be able to use it, but
usually it is just noise.

Blindness is worse than visual noise, because instead of trying to
understand what you are looking at, you are trying to see what it is
that you are looking at.

As a forger, you should avoid both extremes, and don’t be afraid to experiment with striking Architectural features.